A Mindful Guide to Modern Living

October 21, 2011

I was a KOA Kid

As the Fall weather cools we are spending as much time as possible outside. My kids would spend all day everyday outside given their druthers, so we usually pack up on weekends and head out to the country--upstate New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania. We have a mini-van which I LOVE. Believe me, I never thought that I would say those words, but it's true. It reminds me of the motor home my Grandparents had in the seventies and eighties--we'd take that gas guzzler all over the country to visit hot spots like the Wisconsin Dells, Opryland, the Grand Canyon, even out to California to see the Redwood Forests. We'd camp along the way at KOA's. Camping as a child and then as an adult taughtt me about living simply, because when you hike in to a camp site you have to carry everything on your back that you will need for the time you are camping out. Food, clothing, and shelter. You pack minimally because you don't want to carry a single ounce more than is absolutely necessary. I haven't been camping in a long while, but now that we have a mini-van I think it just might be a possibility in the very near future.

Until you've gone on an extensive multi-day camping trip where you have to carry everything that you need to live on your back, the concept of Living Simply may not seem simple to you at all. The fact is that the Simple Living concept is not complicated, and it is a great help when pay careful attention to how you design your environment. You'll find that you can pare down your life to what is absolutely essential, and then carefully add some non-essential things (that tufted ottoman?) that are more like tasty treats. And you can remind yourself along the that what you really need is actually far, far less that what you thought.

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I was a KOA Kid

As the Fall weather cools we are spending as much time as possible outside. My kids would spend all day everyday outside given their druthers, so we usually pack up on weekends and head out to the country--upstate New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania. We have a mini-van which I LOVE. Believe me, I never thought that I would say those words, but it's true. It reminds me of the motor home my Grandparents had in the seventies and eighties--we'd take that gas guzzler all over the country to visit hot spots like the Wisconsin Dells, Opryland, the Grand Canyon, even out to California to see the Redwood Forests. We'd camp along the way at KOA's. Camping as a child and then as an adult taughtt me about living simply, because when you hike in to a camp site you have to carry everything on your back that you will need for the time you are camping out. Food, clothing, and shelter. You pack minimally because you don't want to carry a single ounce more than is absolutely necessary. I haven't been camping in a long while, but now that we have a mini-van I think it just might be a possibility in the very near future.

Until you've gone on an extensive multi-day camping trip where you have to carry everything that you need to live on your back, the concept of Living Simply may not seem simple to you at all. The fact is that the Simple Living concept is not complicated, and it is a great help when pay careful attention to how you design your environment. You'll find that you can pare down your life to what is absolutely essential, and then carefully add some non-essential things (that tufted ottoman?) that are more like tasty treats. And you can remind yourself along the that what you really need is actually far, far less that what you thought.